I remember the fascination with which I watched Planet Of The Apes when I was 12. The costumes, the plot and the horror of the end was enough to get me addicted to the film and watch it as many times as I could.
Then, in 2001 came the remake with Mark Wahlberg and Helena Bonham Carter in the lead with Tim Burton at the helm of affairs. Now this was also a time where I was going through some difficulty in taking the lead singer from Marky Mark & The Funky Bunch as a serious actor, but Planet Of The Apes changed that for me. As you may have gathered by now, I’m biased towards movies with spacecrafts and people in monkey suits (or Helena Bonham Carter, whichever comes first). So, clearly, I had been waiting for Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes for a few months now. And I will not say I was disappointed but I do have a few minor complaints which I will share with you in a bit.
The film begins predictably, which is fine, and it sort of meanders for the first 20 minutes trying to hurriedly give you a storyline so that it can get to the juicy parts. This was a bit annoying, only because it was so obvious. It’s like the film team knew they had a good story on their hands and they didn’t want to bother with the boring stuff. Also, I had just started to warm up to Freida Pinto but she has about 8 lines in the film, a lot of them monosyllabic. And there is this one other thing, but if I tell you, then I might as well write down the entire story and I don’t want to do that because I really want people to watch this film.
Now for the good bit. This is a phenomenal prequel. If you are familiar with the previous Planet of the Apes film, there are parts in this film where you go ‘Oh!’ because suddenly it all makes sense. The story is sewn together with the finest of threads, linking the past and the future together. Caesar, the main man (monkey?) played by Andy Serkis is a treat to watch. And when the story picks up, it just doesn’t back down. It rolls and rolls and rolls and forms a brilliant crescendo.
I would say go watch this film, then watch the 1968 film with Charlton Heston & then the 2001 reboot with Mark Wahlberg. Now that I have sorted your weekend out, I’ll let you know that I accept cheques.
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